14 thoughts on “Margo’s Not Dead!: My interview with Francine Pascal

  1. winstonegbert says:

    Margo’s not dead!!!! This almost makes up for the lack of Nicholas Morrow and the possibility of Taylor Swift playing the twins.
    I love that she rates Elizabeth Levy of the “I start with a cartwheel, or at least I try to…” fame.
    Great interview!

  2. dufmanno says:

    By the way, my entire extended family in New York went crazy when they saw this on facebook. They LOVED these books and sent it to each other like rabid animals.

    • Manuel says:

      This post totally ceackrd me up–especially the “Shout out if you’re googling yourself” and the part about Americans and our Anglophilia. And the SWH books were great….Did you guys get the soap opera Another World there at all? It kind of reminded me of SWH. They had the whole good/bad twin thing going on. Victoria was the Jessica and Marly was the Elizabeth. Although I guess the good/bad twin thing is a common theme. I’m trying to remember Elizabeth’s boyfriend. Was it Todd??? Now I’m wondering what happened with them……Did they ever have sex in the books?

  3. deadtreehugger says:

    Francine was a total bitch over the ghostwriter question. She certainly wants more credit than she deserves. I’d she was that talented she should have written them herself!! After all, rl stine didn’t use a ghostwriter for fear street!! Sure she came up with some of the stories but all of them, every plot line?? no way. We can all tell that from the horrific svc Anyway. Btw, I am currently buying sweet valley books… Any series except kids. If anyone wants to sell you can email me at kylajaclyn@yahoo.com .

  4. Fran says:

    I don’t get the Winston comment. I know he was made out to be a nerd but he always got the girl in the end. So why would he have anger?

  5. TurtleGirl93 says:

    OMG. I found you last week via Forever Young Adult, and I’ve worked my way thru your entire blog. Prepare for a little word vomit…I could barely refrain from commenting on old posts. enter
    Re: blog. Love it!
    Re: reading in general. I started reading SVH in 6th grade (the same year almost every girl in my class shared one purloined-from-an-older-sister copy of Flowers in the Attic). I think that was around the time that the Nancy Drew Case Files (loved them!!) and BSC debuted. I had younger cousins, babysat thru high school and then nannied while in college so even when I was too old to legit buy the books, I read whatever was on the shelves.
    Re: BSC/babysitter age. I started babysitting AT NIGHT when I was 10 in my neighborhood. I couldn’t understand why Mallory & Jessi couldn’t. My mother’s rule(as this was before cell phones were mainstream) was that I could only sit on nights when she didn’t have plans, and she drove me to/from jobs.
    Re: Behind the Attic Wall. Ummmm, Maggie’s depiction on the cover bothered me. Her face is too flat or something. I reread it once again and I still teared up, like the younger foster sister, over Uncle Morris. (And yes, The Dollhouse Murders was awesomely creepy)
    Re: Canby Hall. I read every single book in the original series. Dana’s first boyfriend reminded me of Bruce Patman. Poor Dana-I always thought she looked bigger than supposedly chubby Shelley on the covers.
    Re: Sweet Dreams series. On vacation one summer I bought a book about a girl who was volunteering at the hospital and there was a doctor who suddenly started botching surgeries & acting strange(obvs evil twin plot) and a cute intern and a hurricane. I don’t think it was in the SD series but there was a scratch off postcard thing in it and I won 6 free books from the publisher. A couple of them were SD. Loved them!
    I’m so glad to find other adults who read and remember the books I loved. Yay.

  6. Suckie Stackhouse says:

    Deeeelightful interview! I also have to call bullshit on the ghostwriter thing. If she wrote every story, then how some her loyal fans could pick out all the inconsistancies with her novels? I think she needs to suck it, and suck it hard.

    Also loved how she’d never been to California, but it was EXACTLY how she wrote it. Yeah, I’m going to write about…um…somewhere in Sweden, and I’m sure I can nail the topography, weather, and stereotypical inhabitants. But I guess you can just guess: California = twins, blondness, blue eyes, beaches, bitches, richies, and convertables. Bra-frickin-vo.

    It’s great to hear how full of shit Pascal is. (Also, if Taylor Swift is in that god-damned movie, here’s one person not going to see it – I thought the twins were supposed to be attractive!!)

  7. Jenna says:

    I call bullshit on the reasoning for Winston’s resentment. He dated a popular cheerleader in high school (Maria Santelli) and a Sorority girl/President in University (Denise Waters). Both were super popular and uber beautiful. No way did he have built up resentment. Only girl he never got was Jessica Wakefield… I guess not dating a Wakefield Twinkie meant you were destined for years of therapy. But then dating one achieved the same ends – so either way you are screwed. 😀

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